Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford

In article <bn3nq2$gso$1@bob.news.rcn.net>,
Derek Janssen <djanss.DeleteThis@rcn.com> wrote:
 >Clare Parrack wrote:
 >
  >> Philip Pullman talks about his new book and answers readers questions on his
  >> award-winning His Dark Materials trilogy at Cheltenham Festival of
  >> Literature - see
<font color=green>  >> <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/getfresh/2003/10/philip_pullman_qa.shtm</font" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/getfresh/2003/10/philip_pullman_q...htm<</a>>
  >> l
 >
 >Unfortunately, they didn't include the most frequently asked question
 >upon reading TGC:
 >
 >"...Where the heck ARE we?--Past? Future? Alternate present? Hey,
 >showoff, forgot about *us* out here, the readers?--Wanna stop taking
 >bows long enough to give us a friggin CLUE???"

I am baffled at your vehemence here, Derek. The gradual introduction
of background and settings is typical of fantasy works in general.
It should be clear from the outset that the book is not set exactly
in our own world, if only from the presence of daemons. And once
you have decoupled the setting from the mundane here-and-now, what
does it even mean to ask about past, present or future?


--
Ethan A Merritt<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

Ethan Merritt wrote:

   >>>Philip Pullman talks about his new book and answers readers questions on his
   >>>award-winning His Dark Materials trilogy at Cheltenham Festival of
   >>>Literature - see
   >>>http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/getfresh/2003/10/philip_pullman_qa.shtm
   >>>l
  >>
  >>Unfortunately, they didn't include the most frequently asked question
  >>upon reading TGC:
  >>
  >>"...Where the heck ARE we?--Past? Future? Alternate present? Hey,
  >>showoff, forgot about *us* out here, the readers?--Wanna stop taking
  >>bows long enough to give us a friggin CLUE???"
 >
 > I am baffled at your vehemence here, Derek. The gradual introduction
 > of background and settings is typical of fantasy works in general.
 > It should be clear from the outset that the book is not set exactly
 > in our own world, if only from the presence of daemons. And once
 > you have decoupled the setting from the mundane here-and-now, what
 > does it even mean to ask about past, present or future?

It gets back to the question of whether you, as the writer, write for
the readers or for the mirror--
A writer who wants to tell a story to readers who'd never been there has
to decide whether he wants to give the readers some psychological
grounding before leading them into terra-incognita gradually, or snap at
them for being slowpokes and not keeping up.

Tolkien started his epic in a pseudo-English village, Carroll started
with lessons on a riverbank, and C.S. Lewis (yeah, yeah, we know, Phil,
"boo, hiss!") gave us a wardrobe and a lamppost--
And on the other side, there's one generally only *one* type of author
who brick-pelts us with his ENTIRE imagination in the first chapter,
just to see the look on our collective faces, and then skips merrily off
into his own creation, leaving us trying to refold the road map.

Derek Janssen
djanss DeleteThis @rcn.com<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

In article <bn3r1h$o3a$1@bob.news.rcn.net>, Derek Janssen wrote:
 > It gets back to the question of whether you, as the writer, write for
 > the readers or for the mirror--
 > A writer who wants to tell a story to readers who'd never been there has
 > to decide whether he wants to give the readers some psychological
 > grounding before leading them into terra-incognita gradually, or snap at
 > them for being slowpokes and not keeping up.
 >
 > Tolkien started his epic in a pseudo-English village, Carroll started
 > with lessons on a riverbank, and C.S. Lewis (yeah, yeah, we know, Phil,
 > "boo, hiss!") gave us a wardrobe and a lamppost--
 > And on the other side, there's one generally only *one* type of author
 > who brick-pelts us with his ENTIRE imagination in the first chapter,
 > just to see the look on our collective faces, and then skips merrily off
 > into his own creation, leaving us trying to refold the road map.

I'm baffled by this comment. I found Pullum's work quite easy to
follow. Many modern fantasy writers are much more ambiguous about
place and time than Pullum---he establishes quite quickly that this is
a parallel universe.

Quite frankly, I find modern fantasy authors who insist on a mundane
framing story rather tedious---the framework seems to be there for
people who don't like fantasy, who probably won't enjoy the book in
any case.

Perhaps Derek has not read much fantasy and is not familiar with
conventions of the genre. Or perhaps he just dislikes the books and is
trying to figure out why. Perhaps he finds the anti-church attitudes
objectionable and so wants to find other reasons to tear down the
author.

I rather liked the trilogy, though I thought it was a bit too dark for
my 7-year-old son, so we won't be having him read it for a while.

--
Kevin Karplus karplus.DeleteThis@soe.ucsc.edu http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

In article <slrnbpatt7.sne.karplus DeleteThis @bray.cse.ucsc.edu>, Kevin Karplus wrote:
 >In article <bn3r1h$o3a$1@bob.news.rcn.net>, Derek Janssen wrote:
  >> It gets back to the question of whether you, as the writer, write for
  >> the readers or for the mirror--
  >> A writer who wants to tell a story to readers who'd never been there has
  >> to decide whether he wants to give the readers some psychological
  >> grounding before leading them into terra-incognita gradually, or snap at
  >> them for being slowpokes and not keeping up.
  >>
  >> Tolkien started his epic in a pseudo-English village, Carroll started
  >> with lessons on a riverbank, and C.S. Lewis (yeah, yeah, we know, Phil,
  >> "boo, hiss!") gave us a wardrobe and a lamppost--
  >> And on the other side, there's one generally only *one* type of author
  >> who brick-pelts us with his ENTIRE imagination in the first chapter,
  >> just to see the look on our collective faces, and then skips merrily off
  >> into his own creation, leaving us trying to refold the road map.
 >
 >I'm baffled by this comment. I found Pullum's work quite easy to
 >follow. Many modern fantasy writers are much more ambiguous about
 >place and time than Pullum---he establishes quite quickly that this is
 >a parallel universe.

I agree. I didn't much like _His Dark Materials_, but it wasn't the
unfolding of the worldbuilding that put me off; that, I thought, was
handled pretty well. I didn't feel as if I were being asked to keep up
with the map any more strenuously than in most of the fantasy on my
shelf.

Peace,
Liz

--
Elizabeth Broadwell (ebroadwe at dept dot english dot upenn dot edu) at
the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
And this is poor old Boston, the home of the Dig and the Curse,
Where the Sox pound the Yankees for seven, then suffer a fatal reverse.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

Liz Broadwell wrote:
 > In article <slrnbpatt7.sne.karplus.TakeThisOut@bray.cse.ucsc.edu>, Kevin Karplus wrote:
 >
  >>In article <bn3r1h$o3a$1@bob.news.rcn.net>, Derek Janssen wrote:
  >>
   >>>It gets back to the question of whether you, as the writer, write for
   >>>the readers or for the mirror--
   >>>A writer who wants to tell a story to readers who'd never been there has
   >>>to decide whether he wants to give the readers some psychological
   >>>grounding before leading them into terra-incognita gradually, or snap at
   >>>them for being slowpokes and not keeping up.
   >>>
   >>>Tolkien started his epic in a pseudo-English village, Carroll started
   >>>with lessons on a riverbank, and C.S. Lewis (yeah, yeah, we know, Phil,
   >>>"boo, hiss!") gave us a wardrobe and a lamppost--
   >>>And on the other side, there's one generally only *one* type of author
   >>>who brick-pelts us with his ENTIRE imagination in the first chapter,
   >>>just to see the look on our collective faces, and then skips merrily off
   >>>into his own creation, leaving us trying to refold the road map.
  >>
  >>I'm baffled by this comment. I found Pullum's work quite easy to
  >>follow. Many modern fantasy writers are much more ambiguous about
  >>place and time than Pullum---he establishes quite quickly that this is
  >>a parallel universe.
 >
 > I agree. I didn't much like _His Dark Materials_, but it wasn't the
 > unfolding of the worldbuilding that put me off; that, I thought, was
 > handled pretty well. I didn't feel as if I were being asked to keep up
 > with the map any more strenuously than in most of the fantasy on my
 > shelf.

Not to drag up *this* whole argument again, but it DOES tie a little too
comfortably with my other, and bigger complaint about Pullman:

We tend to throw the term "narcissist" about casually, but it does have
a very SPECIFIC meaning in clinical psychiatry--
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe07.html" target="_blank">http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe07.html</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://samvak.tripod.com/npdglance.html" target="_blank">http://samvak.tripod.com/npdglance.html</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/howto.html" target="_blank">http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/howto.html</a>

A person diagnosed with "Narcissistic personality disorder" will not
only give off the irritating public impression that he thinks he's the
bee's knees, but--in dealing with his relationships, often abusive, to
and with other people around him--a narcissist is usually identifiable
in that he will, in laymans' terms:

- Believe that his talents put himself in a deserving elite above
certain accepted social codes everyone else takes for granted, such as
etiquette, courtesy requirements, historical or religious traditions, etc.;
- Enjoy the "shock" reaction he gets from shooting down others' opinions
in conversation--since it must surely be a validation of the "common
people"'s unenlightenment--and seek it out at every conversational
opportunity;
- Treat those in a serving position (eg. waiters, customer service) as
if they were put on earth to serve him and him alone (yep, he's the guy
in front of you at the hotel desk who holds up the line complaining
about the phone bill, and throws a fit when the clerk asks him to step
aside for the next customer);
- Treats his hand-picked circle of friends as an exclusive
mutually-rewarding "club" of those who appreciate his talents, and the
velvet rope is in place;
- Believes that his detractors only detract him out of Iago-like
jealousy of his fame or talent, and that they spend every waking hour
forever plotting against him, but
- since their "problem" clearly dates back to being mad about not being
able to get into the Clubhouse, it's perfectly acceptable, and no breach
of etiquette (fun, in fact!) to laugh at such detractors behind their
back, keep them out of his information loop, and well, what such poor
peasants don't know won't hurt them.

....Okay--Got all that? Good:
Now, given that, as your writing teacher told you, "all writing comes
from within", here's the question:
WHAT kind of fantasy novel--the most personally abstract/symbolic form
of fiction there is--would filter through the NPD subconscious?

Let's throw out a few examples:
- The hero/heroine would be implausibly perfect, and given free
carte-blanche to do everything the author ever personally thought was
cool or colorful;
- Supporting characters would be rather light on personality, backstory
or motivations, and serve only to be convenient in giving our heroine
wisdom, supplies, or lodging--With the exception of *one* or two even
more perfect hand-picked individuals our main character can put their
trust in, and are also free on the wisdom/message dispensation, but stay
conveniently out of the way so that Our Hero/ine can do their stuff, and
just fix up all the background details for them;
- The force of Good would be a small clique of those "guarding the
Secret", while the force of Evil would be a vast conspiracy of those
just simply burning with frustration at said Goodness, and trying to
personally wipe it off the face of the earth;
- Our heroine manages to score points not just by outrunning said
frustrated baddies, but, if captured, also fooling them and outwitting
them with what they don't know;
- The reader is not only asked to be sympathetic with everything that
our protagonist and Good-club characters believe, but the middleman is
cut out and the reader is immediately assumed that they do--So what
would normally be called "propaganda", "lecturing" or "emotional
manipulation" in any other book is perfectly okay here, since it's all
for a good cause:
The idea that something else besides our author's main idea could exist
(a child without a daemon)?--The heroine was horrified!...The idea
filled her with disgust!
- And, of course, lest it be "only a story", the author's Message, and
all his brilliant opinions on it, is the prime directive of the book, so
who's got time for such trivial etiquettes as storytelling or allegory?

....Now, that doesn't REALLY sound like any of Pullman's books, does it?
And really, it'd be unfair to say that of Jane Yolen or Madeline
L'Engle, either.

Derek Janssen
djanss.TakeThisOut@rcn.com<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

Derek Janssen <djanss.RemoveThis@rcn.com> writes:

>Not to drag up *this* whole argument again, but it DOES tie a little too
>comfortably with my other, and bigger complaint about Pullman:

Derek, you've said a lot of strange things over the years, but I think
you've topped yourself with this suggestion that any successful fantasy
writer whose work you dislike has a clinical disorder, which you have
diagnosed without having any personal experience of these individals or
having the credentials to judge such a disorder if you did know them.

That's just weird, man.

Deborah Stevenson
(stevenso@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

Deborah wrote:

>>Not to drag up *this* whole argument again, but it DOES tie a little too
>>comfortably with my other, and bigger complaint about Pullman:
>
> Derek, you've said a lot of strange things over the years, but I think
> you've topped yourself with this suggestion that any successful fantasy
> writer whose work you dislike has a clinical disorder, which you have
> diagnosed without having any personal experience of these individals or
> having the credentials to judge such a disorder if you did know them.
>
> That's just weird, man.

In any other profession, I'd agree--
But like I said, we're talking about "all writing comes from within"
authors, whose very artistic profession revolves around "By his works
shall ye know him"...

Unless you're suggesting that he's faking the books for the money--which
I don't think you are, and neither am I--I'm just suggesting that we're
getting big, fat, 500-page peeks into Pullman's own subconscious, and
dear God, it isn't pretty--
A fantasy should ideally transport you to another place or time, and
tease you with an elusive bit of fairy-tale morality, not make you want
to personally punch an arrogant blowhard author in the mouth...Such
thoughts tend to break the illusion.

Derek Janssen
djanss.TakeThisOut@rcn.com
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

Derek Janssen <djanss.DeleteThis@rcn.com> writes:

>Deborah wrote:

>>>Not to drag up *this* whole argument again, but it DOES tie a little too
>>>comfortably with my other, and bigger complaint about Pullman:
>>
>> Derek, you've said a lot of strange things over the years, but I think
>> you've topped yourself with this suggestion that any successful fantasy
>> writer whose work you dislike has a clinical disorder, which you have
>> diagnosed without having any personal experience of these individals or
>> having the credentials to judge such a disorder if you did know them.
>>
>> That's just weird, man.

>In any other profession, I'd agree--
>But like I said, we're talking about "all writing comes from within"

Who are you quoting with this? Writing comes from insofar as it comes
from the brain of the writer, which has, of course, absorbed ton of
external influences, but there's no particular reason to find it an exact
an inviolate map of the creator's character any more than architecture is
of the architect.

>authors, whose very artistic profession revolves around "By his works
>shall ye know him"...

Psychologically? Hardly. Sure, writers have tendencies that may relate
to their own inclinations (or may not). What's more, so do readers, which
is something your criticism fails to acknowledge--your response to Pullman
is a map of you just as much as his writing is a map of him, and probably
more so, since you're not being edited for marketing. And frankly, I
don't think that your postings are acute psychological reflections of your
innermost soul .

>Unless you're suggesting that he's faking the books for the money--which
>I don't think you are, and neither am I--I'm just suggesting that we're
>getting big, fat, 500-page peeks into Pullman's own subconscious, and
>dear God, it isn't pretty--

It's a look into his craft. You're making it sound like either the
books are faked or he's sharing his personality with his readers every
step of the way. His craft isn't sharing his personality with his
readers, it's writing fiction. It's not "fake" even if he's personally a
Mammon-worshipping sybarite who believes that the only evil is having too
much vermouth in the martini.

What's more, even if he were a card-carrying loony, why does that make any
difference to the book? How would that become your biggest literary
complaint about his work?

>A fantasy should ideally transport you to another place or time,

That statement reminds me of the woman on another group who keeps telling
people what vampires can and cannot do, and who doesn't seem to grasp that
since somebody makes them up, they can do whatever they want.

Fantasies can do whatever their authors please. In this particular case,
what Pullman pleases seems to please a considerable number of readers as
well, so either transporting to another place or time isn't actually the
fantasy priority you're making it out to be or the book *does* do that,
just not for all readers.

It's a big jump from "it ain't my kind of fantasy" to the "this is a
failure and can't be allowed" claim you're extending. And the problem is
what you're using for support is the fact that you didn't like the books.
Entertaining phrasing of that fact doesn't actually constitute authority
.

Deborah Stevenson
(stevenso@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

Deborah wrote:
>
>>>>Not to drag up *this* whole argument again, but it DOES tie a little too
>>>>comfortably with my other, and bigger complaint about Pullman:
>>>
>>>Derek, you've said a lot of strange things over the years, but I think
>>>you've topped yourself with this suggestion that any successful fantasy
>>>writer whose work you dislike has a clinical disorder which you have
>>>diagnosed without having any personal experience of these individals or
>>>having the credentials to judge such a disorder if you did know them.
>>>
>>>That's just weird, man.

I didn't say ANY--
Just at suggesting that if L'Engle and Pullman might have a few inner,
erm, "motivations" in common, how does, say, Pullman's "The thought of a
child without a daemon made Lyra horrified with disgust" differ from
L'Engle's "Actually have a reason to *like* Mr. Jenkins?...Meg couldn't
undestand how that was possible!" from "Wind in the Door" (*another*
rather heavily author-treatise laden "fantasy")?

....I can apply a half-dozen litmus tests in saying that it looks like a
duck and quacks like a duck, but I get complaints that I'm being
*unfair* in saying that it might NOT be a crested blue heron?

> What's more, even if he were a card-carrying loony, why does that make any
> difference to the book? How would that become your biggest literary
> complaint about his work?
>
>>A fantasy should ideally transport you to another place or time,
>
> That statement reminds me of the woman on another group who keeps telling
> people what vampires can and cannot do, and who doesn't seem to grasp that
> since somebody makes them up, they can do whatever they want.
>
> Fantasies can do whatever their authors please.

Well, that's a matter of opinion--The "easier" authors tend to hold it.
Those with a little more discipline believe that most fantasy roots
itself in stories and ideas no one really *does* know the origin to but
take for granted as "real"...And "making yourself at home" by making
the whole darn thing up--especially as a convenient excuse-shelter to
personally talk the reader's ear off about what you happen to think--is
the action of an ugly, self-serving tourist who'd rather sit on the
beaches of Faerie with his own deck chair and pina colada.

Writing fantasy (and I should know ) requires as much moral fiber as
historical, or horror, or even mystery, in that it requires sacrificing
your own need for expression or attention to a larger code of "rules"
that was around long before you arrived--
Let's just say that although those for whom NPD tends to be a problem
generally tend to be attracted to the lure of fantasy (for the quick
appeal of personal dressup and universe-control), they're also the ones
who, in the end, tend to be rather bad at it--It requires actually
caring and showing interest in other people, places, creatures,
traditions and codes besides one's self, and putting their needs ahead
of one's own.

> It's a big jump from "it ain't my kind of fantasy" to the "this is a
> failure and can't be allowed" claim you're extending. And the problem is
> what you're using for support is the fact that you didn't like the books.

Not *liking* the books is one thing (I "didn't like" Madonna's picture
books, for one, but that hasn't changed my musical tastes)--
Having my enjoyment of what should be a disconnected story with its own
crafted or semi-organic universe interrupted by moral *personal*
objections to an author who didn't feel the story was as important as
himself is a slightly larger misdemeanor...
If I'm "supposed" to read the author, not the books, well, I don't like
the author. Which is a little more serious issue. And the books aren't
going to come from anywhere else.

And given the nature of the beast, if he doesn't personally think that's
a "problem" (ie., why fix what "isn't broken"?), I also read with the
sinking suspicion that any previously stated grievances AREN'T going to
miraculously improve any from here.

Derek Janssen
djanss.RemoveThis@rcn.com
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

Derek Janssen <djanss RemoveThis @rcn.com> writes:

>I didn't say ANY--
>Just at suggesting that if L'Engle and Pullman might have a few inner,
>erm, "motivations" in common, how does, say, Pullman's "The thought of a
>child without a daemon made Lyra horrified with disgust" differ from
>L'Engle's "Actually have a reason to *like* Mr. Jenkins?...Meg couldn't
>undestand how that was possible!" from "Wind in the Door" (*another*
>rather heavily author-treatise laden "fantasy")?

>...I can apply a half-dozen litmus tests in saying that it looks like a
>duck and quacks like a duck, but I get complaints that I'm being
>*unfair* in saying that it might NOT be a crested blue heron?

When you've never seen the bird in question and have no particular
knowledge of avian studies, you bet. Though I'd say "wildly and
unsupportly overhyperbolizing" ratherthan "unfair." You're not equipped to
make such a diagnosis even if you interviewed the writers in question, and
here you're trying to claim that you can effectively make such a diagnosis
from what they've crafted to sell without even meeting them. It's kind of
like claiming that not only can you do phrenology, you can do it over the
phone .

>> Fantasies can do whatever their authors please.

>Well, that's a matter of opinion--

Precisely. There is no inherent standard for a successful fantasy. If
there were, it would be a heck of a lot easier to create such a thing.

>The "easier" authors tend to hold it.

No, you patronize as "easier" the authors who create fantasy you don't
so much care for. That's not the same thing .

>Those with a little more discipline believe that most fantasy roots
>itself in stories and ideas no one really *does* know the origin to but
>take for granted as "real"

Again, you're deceptively putting a third-person format on a statement
about what you like in fantasy. That's what *you* like and you like to
write. Cool. But it's no more an eternal verity than the Aristotelian
unities, though that taste is a neoclassical one and you're on the
romantic strand instead.

....And "making yourself at home" by making
>the whole darn thing up

....has been a successful recipe for many fantasies over the last 400
years.

>Writing fantasy (and I should know )

No, you should know about *your* writing of fantasy. Otherwise, by the
same token, Pullman, Yolen, and L'Engle should know *more*, because
they've written more.

requires as much moral fiber as
>historical, or horror, or even mystery, in that it requires sacrificing
>your own need for expression or attention to a larger code of "rules"
>that was around long before you arrived--

And there's that romantic strand again . Who says? And
I'm not meaning that rhetorically. Who actually says this? Or if you're
not arguing this as a traditional genre standard that's been explicitly
attested to, how are *you* arriving at this standard?

>Let's just say that although those for whom NPD tends to be a problem
>generally tend to be attracted to the lure of fantasy (for the quick
>appeal of personal dressup and universe-control),

And because of the significance of the bumps on their head...

>If I'm "supposed" to read the author, not the books, well, I don't like
>the author.

Who are you quoting in this "supposed"? I would say you're doing the
opposite--you're creating a view of the author based on the books and then
condemning the books for their connection to the author you've imagined.
That's a whole lot of trouble to take for something that doesn't advance
your argument anyway--why not just support your points from the literature
itself?

Which is a little more serious issue. And the books
aren't >going to come from anywhere else.

Of course not. If you don't like Pullman's fantasy now, I'd agree, you're
probably not going to like his fantasy in the future. That's hardly a
judgment on his psychological soundness .

Deborah Stevenson
(stevenso@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 12:50:42 -0400, Derek Janssen <djanss.DeleteThis@rcn.com> wrote:

 >Clare Parrack wrote:
 >
  >> Philip Pullman talks about his new book and answers readers questions on his
  >> award-winning His Dark Materials trilogy at Cheltenham Festival of
  >> Literature - see
<font color=green>  >> <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/getfresh/2003/10/philip_pullman_qa.shtm</font" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/getfresh/2003/10/philip_pullman_q...htm<</a>>
  >> l
 >
 >Unfortunately, they didn't include the most frequently asked question
 >upon reading TGC:
 >
 >"...Where the heck ARE we?--Past? Future? Alternate present? Hey,
 >showoff, forgot about *us* out here, the readers?--Wanna stop taking
 >bows long enough to give us a friggin CLUE???"

Does it matter?

It is clearly otherwhere than here and otherwhen than now.


--
Steve Hayes
E-mail: hayesstw.DeleteThis@yahoo.com - see web page if mailbox is overflowing with spam
Web: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/books.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/books.htm</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

On 10/21/03 8:19 PM, in article 3f95d821.23901847.TakeThisOut@news.saix.net, "Steve
Hayes" <hayesstw.spamless.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> wrote:

 > On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 12:50:42 -0400, Derek Janssen <djanss.TakeThisOut@rcn.com> wrote:
 >
  >> Clare Parrack wrote:
  >>
   >>> Philip Pullman talks about his new book and answers readers questions on his
   >>> award-winning His Dark Materials trilogy at Cheltenham Festival of
   >>> Literature - see
<font color=brown>   >>> <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/getfresh/2003/10/philip_pullman_qa.shtm</font" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/getfresh/2003/10/philip_pullman_q...htm<</a>>
   >>> l
  >>
  >> Unfortunately, they didn't include the most frequently asked question
  >> upon reading TGC:
  >>
  >> "...Where the heck ARE we?--Past? Future? Alternate present? Hey,
  >> showoff, forgot about *us* out here, the readers?--Wanna stop taking
  >> bows long enough to give us a friggin CLUE???"
 >
 > Does it matter?
 >
 > It is clearly otherwhere than here and otherwhen than now.

Lyra's Oxford is an alternative Oxford but
is as I remember it one hundred years ago.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford 

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 21:22:35 -0700, francis muir
<francis.muir.1944 DeleteThis @balliol.org> wrote:

 >On 10/21/03 8:19 PM, in article 3f95d821.23901847 DeleteThis @news.saix.net, "Steve
 >Hayes" <hayesstw.spamless DeleteThis @yahoo.com> wrote:
  >> It is clearly otherwhere than here and otherwhen than now.
 >
 >Lyra's Oxford is an alternative Oxford but
 >is as I remember it one hundred years ago.

I bow to your superior knowledge, M'Lud.

Your memory goes back at least three times as far as mine.



--
Steve Hayes
E-mail: hayesstw DeleteThis @yahoo.com - see web page if mailbox is overflowing with spam
Web: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/books.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/books.htm</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford